The charm of Post-impressionism

by Geng Mima painting art

A new artistic form represented by Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin appeared after Impressionism, which was different from Impressionism and was called Post-impressionism by people. Not satisfied with the manifestation of Impressionistic “objectivism” and one-sided pursuit of light and color, Post-impressionists emphasized that the author should express his own feelings, subjective emotions and moods in turn. In artistic expression, Post-impressionism attached importance to form, color and volume’s structural relations. It emphasized that the artistic image has to be different from the object in life and it need the author’s subjective emotions to transform the objective images so as to show “the objectivity that has been subjective”.

Van Gogh, a Netherlander, is an important Post-impressionist. Because he had rich life experiences and deep affection with working people, he was keen on describing their ordinary and hard labor life in his works. He used realistic techniques of expression and described rural scenery and people’s labor life in most of his early oil paintings. And traditional dark tone was the main color in the representation of colors in those works. When coming to Paris in 1886, attracted by fantastic and warm photochromic effect, he started to change his original techniques of painting and threw himself into impressionistic painting and other forms’ experiments with great enthusiasm.

From now on, Van Gogh’s oil painting began to bright up. Bright and hot colors and continuous and fluent stroke had constituted the features of his paintings. He regarded the objects he described as the media of expressing his warm and excited subjective emotions and of representing his unique artistic techniques so as to his subjective feelings and passions. He developed impressionistic artistic methods, especially the method of the shape of color and objects, into a stage which was beyond the traditional methods. Though not recognized by the world during his lifetime, afterwards, his art was gradually understood and known by people. His works embraced his desires for goodness, beauty and imaginative and free creation. He was especially accepted by Faurists and Expressionists that later developed, and till now he was still living in the artistic world.